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Actelion Pharmaceuticals Picks Cloud-Based Veeva CRM Solution

By Shamila Janakiraman
TMCnet Contributor

Switzerland-based Actelion Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company, has tapped cloud-based Veeva CRM for 500 plus users worldwide. Veeva CRM will help the company integrate diverse selling teams, streamline sales reporting, and provide a rich iPad application.

“Our search for a single, global CRM solution was driven by today’s increasingly challenging business environment,” Christoph Schmidt, head of Global Commercial Excellence at Actelion, said. “In order to compete, we need the tools that will enable us to gain a better understanding of our customer's needs and be more responsive.”

“Veeva offered industry-specific functionality for all different user groups - from key opinion leader managers to key account execs and field reps - around the world, all integrated within a single solution,” Schmidt added.

Actelion was using 10 different client/server salesforce automation (SFA) systems from different vendors before going for deploying the Actelion solution.  As the vendors were different, it was difficult for Actelion to maintain and update the system owing to the deficiency in functionality.

Actelion required an innovative solution to align the global sales scenario, so managers from the company’s 29 regions went through an exhaustive RFP process involving five vendors from which Veeva CRM was picked, revealed company sources.

Ultimately, Actelion decided to deploy Veeva CRM globally after conducting successful pilot projects in US, Canada, China, and Australia. The remaining regions including all European territories will be going live with Veeva CRM by the end of 2012.

Schmidt said, “The cloud enables many business and operational benefits including faster deployment, greater flexibility to enable quick changes, and cost effectiveness. And, with Veeva, we benefit from free, regular application updates so that our field force is always up to date. The upgrades are transparent, too, so they don’t cause any disruption to their work allowing us to spearhead technological advancements within the organization very quickly. This is a huge advantage.”

Actelion also started deploying iRep an integrated CRM and CLM cloud-based solution that is designed specifically for the iPad. iRep’s “built in” closed loop marketing solution seamlessly links customer data with interactive content enabling personalized interactions and automatic capture of call activity and physician insight. User experience is enhanced owing to higher quality of customer interactions delivered cost effectively.